Claim?
“The woman in your home,” he adds. “The one who held me this morning. She shares your blood. She is already within their reach.”
“Mom?” Another step back, until my leg bumps against a desk. I lean against it, grateful for the support.
He watches me carefully. “She sat in the chair by the window. The one with the blue blanket over the back. Her hands tremble when she reaches for things. She smells of lavender and medicine.”
The breath leaves my lungs all at once.
“She called me handsome,” he says softly. “Even though I was in rabbit form.”
Memory slams into me.
Mom in her recliner, the morning light catching on the curve of the IV port beneath her shirt. The way her face lit up when I set the cage on her lap. How she’d laughed, actually laughed, when the little white bunny nuzzled into her hand.
“Well, aren’t you handsome,” she’d said, her voice thin but warm.
I hadn’t heard her laugh like that in weeks.
My heart gives an uneasy thud. “That’s…” I swallow hard. “That’s not possible.”
Sorren doesn’t waver.
“Is it only her?” he asks. “Or do you have a father? Siblings as well?”
Dad is gone.
It’s just me and Mom.
And this morning, that rabbit. If the thing that bit me somehow turned into the man standing in front of me now, then it wasn’t just in my classroom.
It had been in my house.
In my mother’s lap.
“Dad died a few years ago,” I manage. “Heart attack. It’s just us.”
Sorren nods once, the movement clipped, decisive. “We must go to your home and ensure she is safe.”
Safe.
The word hits like a hammer. If he’s telling the truth, whoever’s hunting him already knows where I live. Knows whereshelives.
Sorren glances down at himself, and I swear his cheeks color, just a little. He clears his throat. “If you possess garments suitable for a royal male,” he says politely, “I would appreciate their use.”
I blink at him. “You’re asking me for clothes?”
“Yes.”
“That’s it?” I gesture wildly. “You break into my locked classroom via rabbit cage, announce that you’re being hunted for the throne, and now you want to borrow a cardigan?”
“I do not believe a cardigan would be appropriate.”
He sways slightly on his feet. For the first time, I notice how pale he’s gotten. How a faint sheen of sweat dots his brow.
“Are you all right?” I ask, then immediately feel foolish. Of course he’s not all right.
He’s delusional.
